Experiment Has Yielded No `Carnivals'

On July 1, Virginia ended a five-year "experiment" with cameras in a few of its courtrooms and made routine courtroom access by visual media the real thing.

As impatient as we've been to gain that access, we can't really blame the judges and legislators for their deliberation. The case from which all this business stems showed the media at its frenzied worst.

You can trace it all back to Sam Sheppard. Sheppard was a doctor whose wife was murdered in their suburban Cleveland, Ohio, home in 1954. He claimed to have been asleep when he heard her cry out. He said he had grappled with a "form" in the darkness and then fell unconscious.

If you don't remember the case, you may recall the television series it inspired. Sheppard's "form" became the elusive one-armed man David Janssen sought for episode after episode of "The Fugitive."

Sheppard was charged with the murder. His trial drew intense newspaper, television and radio coverage. He was convicted and sent to prison. But 12 years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Sheppard had been deprived of justice by media run amok. He was acquitted in a new trial.

The judge was at fault for allowing a "carnival atmosphere" at Sheppard's trial, the high court found. A coroner's inquest was held in a school gym, with a table set up in the front of the room for reporters and photographers. At the trial, newspeople were allowed to swarm in front of the "bar," the courtroom boundary that usually separates participants from spectators.

Judges since Sheppard have taken the Supreme Court's admonitions seriously. Cameras were the most significant victim. Reporters could be placed in the second row and told to be seated and be quiet. But photographers and cameras could be disruptive: noisy, cumbersome, intrusive, distracting. And the newspaper and television cameras of the 1950s and '60s were larger and noisier than today's high-tech tools.

Virginia's new law clearly recognizes the rocky history of media court coverage; its restrictions are legion. Lawyers in a case can object to the presence of cameras. We can't make pictures of jurors. We won't be allowed to cover trials involving sexual battery or juveniles. We won't be in the courtroom with our cameras when confidential informants or undercover police officers take the stand. Only one newspaper photographer is allowed in a courtroom at any time (if more papers want pictures, that photographer is required to share). Professional media associations are expected to take care of pooling arrangements; judges won't mediate our squabbles. A photographer can carry no more than two cameras. Noisy equipment is forbidden. And photographers must wear appropriate business dress, which means ties for men - not exactly typical attire for most of them.

Above all else, the judge rules. The law now allows the privilege of covering trials with cameras, but it is clearly a privilege. A judge can eject the photographers as he or she deems appropriate to ensure justice. Justice, after all, is the purpose of the courtroom. A trial is not an entertainment for the masses.

Recognizing that, our photography manager, Jim Livengood, has been meeting with area judges and inspecting courtrooms to talk about their concerns regarding cameras in their courtrooms. He's working out camera angles and shooting positions and discussing when and how our photographers will be allowed into the courtrooms.

Frankly, it means more to television than to newspapers. The drama of live courtroom action can be intriguing, as has been shown in a couple of widely televised cases, like the Ted Bundy murder trial or William Kennedy Smith's rape trial in Florida. For newspapers it means in-court mug shots of the participants. But that allows us to give justice a face: the accused, the defense attorney, the judge, the key witness.

The Virginia "experiment" of allowing cameras in a few selected courtrooms around the state since 1987 showed their presence need not endanger justice. The new law won't change that. Judges and the press will cooperate to ensure that access doesn't have to mean another Sheppard "carnival."